Some time ago we carried out a research project for BNI (Business Networking International) looking at how small companies promoted themselves and what made them use online tools rather than face to face activity. We interviewed a wide range of businesses from Europe and the UK. Europe and Asia.

On average small company owners spend between 12-15 hours a week promoting themselves. in practice carry out a lot of face to face networking backed up with PR and some on line advertising. Things that they don’t do are use leaflet drops or local postcards which for many of them would be quite effective.

Because our sponsor is a networking organisation we drilled down into the way in which the companies networked. It turns out that most want a home group to network with which usually consists of 20-30 other people. This is used for support, and to discuss new business ideas.

We asked them what was it that developed trust in people that they met. The answers were interesting.

•Be crystal clear about what you do

•Get back to people quickly

•Practice Givers Gain – sometimes called pay it forward. In other words do favours for people you meet.

national presence takes companies online

We managed to establish what it was that encouraged individuals to go online. It turns out this is driven by the need or desire to be active on a national or international scale rather than just operate as a local business. Some of the findings are shown in this chart

Nationally focused companies are twice as likely to blog and use linked-in and twitter compared to locally focused companies (defined as having 80% of their business from within a 50 mile radius